“He was scrolling, Sienna.”
“I’ve learned life on the water is unpredictable,” she says. “Rescues are messy. Calls come in. People drop what they’redoing and react. The optics aren’t always clear from the outside. Sometimes people look like they’re doing one thing when they’re really just trying to keep their head above water.”
The last pancake bite disappears, her finger chasing the final thread of syrup. She shoves back from the table, pats her belly with a grunt of pure contentment, and stretches her arms overhead.
“Alright, enough carbs and feelings. I’m gonna check on Orson. Make sure he’s sober enough to properly bore everyone with sea lion facts. Last I saw, Blaze had him cornered by three women so drunk they’d proposition a buoy.”
Sienna eyes my muffin, “You’re not eating that, are you?”
I shake my head and slide the plate over.
She grabs it, takes an enormous bite, and points at me while she chews.
“Not the muffin I was hoping for,” she says, deadpan. “But I’ll take it.”
I choke on a mouthful of air. She winks and saunters away.
Sienna’s words about Cole burrow in where I don’t want them. A deeply inconvenient voice whispers:
What if she’s right?
What if you misread it?
What if he wasn’t using your—
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
He was on my iPad. Reading my files.
End of discussion.
The apple-shampoo-scented version of me in the shower this morning, the hopeful and stupid one? I leave her there before she can do any more damage.
Cole Hartwell mistook my feelings for weakness. My body for a strategy. That miscalculation is going to cost him everything.
I won’t be second choice again.
That promotion is mine.
Chapter Fourteen
Cole
“Last event. Last push. Last million.”
Ivy Ellison lets the words hang for effect.
The Salty Old Sea Hag wallows beneath my boots, her planks groaning like a weathered sailor. Metal clanks against metal with every swell. This isn’t a tour boat—it’s a rescue vessel that’s been knocked around for decades and still gets back up. The hum of the generator crawls up through the deck, and settles in my bones like a second pulse.
She’s a no-nonsense ship. She gets the job done.
Kind of like her crew.
Marine biologists and Dare4Change staff crowd the main level—some checking and rechecking equipment, all with untouched, lukewarm coffee in their hands.
Ivy taps the next slide.
